The worldwide art market performed exceptionally well during 2021. Artworks worth billions of dollars were purchased during this period. Works of contemporary as well as postwar and Impressionist artists fetched high prices in the art market. Many of these artworks were purchased by individuals who have earned their wealth from cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies.
Top Artworks Sold This Year
Prominent New York art auction companies sold artworks for over $2.6 billion in the two weeks of November. Four works of Vincent van Gogh sold for $161 million. The tall painting of Jean Michel Basquiat became the most costly printing to sell this year when it sold in May for $93 million. Over $676 million were fetched for 35 works of artists Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Mark Rothko and others in November. Nicolas Party’s art Landscape sold for $3.2 million. It was more than its previous record for this Swiss artist’s work.
The Pent-Up Demand of 2020 Opening up
Art market analysts think the demand that remained suppressed during 2020 due to the Covid pandemic is coming to the fore. It coincided with the time when people holding highly valuable artworks wanted to sell their holdings. Lots of quality artworks are coming to the art market. Buyers of high-end paintings do not want to let go of this opportunity. They are interested not only in paintings but also in other artworks. The Roman sculpture Hamilton Aphrodite going back to the first/second century A.D. set a new record for old marble sculpture, selling for $25 m, breaking the pre-sale $2-3 million estimate.
The high price paid for artworks was not limited to the physical artworks only. Even the NFT of the art of a digital artist Beeple sold for $69 million. Experts are attributing these high-value purchases in the art market to the young buyers who have built their wealth through crypto and blockchain.
